November 22, 2020
Forestry was once a thriving industry in Fukushima – until the 2011 nuclear disaster struck. More than 70 percent of the prefecture is covered with trees, but large areas have been abandoned or neglected.
“It’s regrettable. I didn’t even imagine things were so bad,” says forester Akimoto Kimio, who visited a plantation in Tomioka, about 10 kilometers away from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Ever since an earthquake and tsunami triggered a triple meltdown at the facility, the forest has been abandoned. Some of its most prized pine trees, more than 50 years old, have died.
Akimoto, 72, heads a local forestry cooperative that was relocated elsewhere in the prefecture following the nuclear accident. But after nine years and eight months, it returned to Tomioka on November 4.
Akimoto Kimio, the head of the Futaba district forestry cooperative.
The forestry cooperative ships timber and manages maintenance, such as thinning out trees. Akimoto oversees about 2,000 hectares, 60 percent of which is in areas subject to an evacuation order due to high radiation levels.
His cooperative used to have 20 workers. At one point, the number dwindled to just two. Akimoto has worked hard to keep it afloat, negotiating with the central government and plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Company on decontamination work and compensation. He believes forest preservation will one day help to ensure evacuated residents can return.
Unattended areas of woodland can pose various risks, including fires. A contaminated forest would be particularly hazardous in the event of a landslide, because the mud flow is likely to contain radioactive substances.
n 2017, a forest fire near Tomioka burned down trees on a 75-hectare-plot. It took 11 days to extinguish.
“Our mission is to take good care of our hometown forests and enhance the surrounding environment,” says Akimoto on the day his cooperative returned to Tomioka.
“We will help lay the groundwork to ensure residents can return worry-free. We hope many will come home.”
Fukushima 311 Watchdogs 
Global burning a product of unburned petrochemicals, pyrophoric radionuclides and heavy metals in the soil from motor vehicle exhaust emissions.
Fukushima forests, will be on fire again in 2021.
There is so much petrochemical residue in soil, around cities. The residue, is from unburned hcs from car exhaust. There are so much pyrophoric heavy metals and radionuclides, in the soil from massive fossil fuel burning in cars. There is global heating. It is causing wild fires to move from the periphery of urban areas, closer to cities and towns. Like by Phoenix Arizona, Grand Junction Colorado, Boulder Colorado.
There was a quadruple increase in the volume and, number of wildfires last year. This year law Vegas and LA will be on fire. Most of Utah, nevada, arizona, west Colorado and new mexico will be on fire. There will be 20 hurricanes next year. One will strike a nuclear power plant.
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If people will not come together soon about ending and disposing of nuclear weapons, doing something about nuclear waste, and comprehensive solutions for securing and dismantling the nuclear reactors that exist, there will not be much of a planet left for life on earth, in the near future.
https://beyondnuclearinternational.org/2020/11/29/all-casked-up-with-nowhere-to-go/
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The LDP in Japan is awful. The burden of radionuclide waste in the oceans air in land in the North hemisphere is dangerously high. This is especially true in the US Japan europe russia and the arctic. The coho salmon in Wa state are going. It ain’t from chemicals. Its from the worse toxins known. Cs137 co 60. Strontium 90 plutonium iodine133 etc. The lies and more filthy lies. Every American landfill is full of americium 140. Am140 is easily as toxic as plutonium to the tune of billionth of a gram and less. gamm and alpha emmiter. We are at a crossroad. TEPCO wants to release millions of gallons of tritiated and strontiated water into the ocean.
The Australians and USA want to build hypersonic nuclear missiles.
Biden will not be so great if he gets in but Trump has done great damage. How could people have sunk so low, to support such a monster? Trump is an evil bastard. his mentor Roy Cohn sadistically destroyed the lives of thousands of talented people, with the McCarthy witchhunts. Trump has set america in the precipice of nuke war and nuke, catastrophes. His supporters believe nuke war is survivable. Even the detonation of a few nuke bombs will destroy what is left of the world. The generals, the oligarchs, the racist fallderal, the evangelical Christian fascists are all mad. The huge cadre of racist goon, police-bullies, that support this evil man, in this racist police state are an abomination . Sacrilegious to the dignity, decency, and justice they claim to represent.
https://www.mintpressnews.com/chris-hedges-the-politics-of-cultural-despair/272099/
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